Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Under Its Threat, Google Would Abandon a Lucrative Market - NYTimes.com

Very big stakes poker game

In an interview, David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said Google’s revenue in China was “immaterial.” But he acknowledged that Google could eventually miss an opportunity presented by a booming Internet market. “I suppose there is a risk there if it becomes a major market. We are not going to make a financially based decision to stay in a market that is intolerable for us,” he said.

Google’s decision amounts to an implicit admission that its gamble that it could help open China has failed.